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At least 1,081 records · Page 60

Damage-Mitigating Control of Space Propulsion Systems for High Performance and Extended Life

A major goal in the control of complex mechanical system such as spacecraft rocket engine's advanced aircraft, and power plants is to achieve high performance with increased reliability, component durability, and maintainability. The current practice of decision and control systems synthesis focuses on improving performance and diagnostic capabilities under constraints that often do not adequately represent the materials degradation. In view of the high performance requirements of the system and availability of improved materials, the lack of appropriate knowledge about the properties of these materials will lead to either less than achievable performance due to overly conservative design, or over-straining of the structure leading to unexpected failures and drastic reduction of the service life. The key idea in this report is that a significant improvement in service life could be achieved by a small reduction in the system dynamic performance. The major task is to characterize the damage generation process, and then utilize this information in a mathematical form to synthesize a control law that would meet the system requirements and simultaneously satisfy the constraints that are imposed by the material and structural properties of the critical components. The concept of damage mitigation is introduced for control of mechanical systems to achieve high performance with a prolonged life span. A model of fatigue damage dynamics is formulated in the continuous-time setting, instead of a cycle-based representation, for direct application to control systems synthesis. An optimal control policy is then formulated via nonlinear programming under specified constraints of the damage rate and accumulated damage. The results of simulation experiments for the transient upthrust of a bipropellant rocket engine are presented to demonstrate efficacy of the damage-mitigating control concept.

Ray, Asok↗

Test Facilities Capability Handbook

The John C. Stennis Space Center (SSC) is located in Southern Mississippi near the Mississippi-Louisiana state line. SSC is chartered as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Center of Excellence for large space transportation propulsion system testing. This charter has led to many unique test facilities, capabilities and advanced technologies provided through the supporting infrastructure. SSC has conducted projects in support of such diverse activities as liquid, and hybrid rocket testing and development; material development; non-intrusive plume diagnostics; plume tracking; commercial remote sensing; test technology and more. On May 30, 1996 NASA designated SSC the lead Center for rocket propulsion testing, giving the Center total responsibility for conducting and/or managing all NASA rocket engine testing. Test services are now available not only for NASA but also for the DoD, other government agencies, academia, and industry. This handbook was developed to provide a summary of the capabilities that exist within SSC. It is intended as a primary resource document, which will provide the reader with the top-level capabilities and characteristics of the numerous test facilities, test support facilities, laboratories, and services. Due to the nature of continually evolving programs and test technologies, descriptions of the Center's current capabilities are provided. Periodic updates and revisions of this document will be made to maintain is completeness and accuracy.

Taliancich, Paula↗

Test Facilities Capability Handbook: Volume 1 - Stennis Space Center (SSC); Volume 2 - Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)

The John C. Stennis Space Center (SSC) is located in Southern Mississippi near the Mississippi-Louisiana state line. SSC is chartered as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Center of Excellence for large space transportation propulsion system testing. This charter has led to many unique test facilities, capabilities and advanced technologies provided through the supporting infrastructure. SSC has conducted projects in support of such diverse activities as liquid, and hybrid rocket testing and development; material development; non-intrusive plume diagnostics; plume tracking; commercial remote sensing; test technology and more. On May 30, 1996 NASA designated SSC the lead center for rocket propulsion testing, giving the center total responsibility for conducting and/or managing all NASA rocket engine testing. Test services are now available not only for NASA but also for the Department of Defense, other government agencies, academia, and industry. This handbook was developed to provide a summary of the capabilities that exist within SSC. It is intended as a primary resource document, which will provide the reader with the top-level capabilities and characteristics of the numerous test facilities, test support facilities, laboratories, and services. Due to the nature of continually evolving programs and test technologies, descriptions of the Center's current capabilities are provided. Periodic updates and revisions of this document will be made to maintain its completeness and accuracy.

Hensarling, Paula L.↗

STATUS OF THE NEUTRALIZED DRIFT COMPRESSION EXPERIMENT (NDCX-II)

The Neutralized Drift Compression Experiment (NDCX-II) is an 11 M$ induction accelerator project currently in construction at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for warm dense matter (WDM) experiments investigating the interaction of ion beams with matter at elevated temperature and pressure. The machine consists of a lithium injector, induction accelerator cells, diagnostic cells, a neutralized drift compression line, a final focus solenoid, and a target chamber. The induction cells and some of the pulsed power systems have been reused from the decommissioned Advanced Test Accelerator at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory after refurbishment and modification. The machine relies on a sequence of acceleration waveforms to longitudinally compress the initial ion pulse from 600 ns to less than 1 ns in {approx} 12 m. Radial confinement of the beam is achieved with 2.5 T pulsed solenoids. In the initial hardware configuration, 50 nC of Li{sup +} will be accelerated to 1.25 MeV and allowed to drift-compress to a peak current of {approx}40 A. The project started in the summer of 2009. Construction of the accelerator will be completed in the fall of 2011 and will provide a worldwide unique opportunity for ion-driven warm dense matter experiments as well as research related to novel beam manipulations for heavy ion fusion drivers.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

The laser shock station in the dynamic compression sector. I

The Laser Shock Station in the Dynamic Compression Sector [Advanced Photon Source (APS), Argonne National Laboratory] links a laser-driven shock compression platform with high energy x-ray pulses from the APS to achieve in-situ, time-resolved x-ray measurements (diffraction and imaging) in materials subjected to well-characterized, high stress, short duration planar shock waves. Additionally, the combination of this station and the other DCS experimental stations provides a unique and versatile experimental facility to study condensed state phenomena by undertaking real-time, multi-scale measurements in materials subjected to a wide range of shock amplitudes (to above ~350 GPa) and time-durations (~10 ns to 1 μs). The Laser Shock Station uses a 100 joule, 5-17 ns, 351 nm frequency tripled Nd:glass laser with programmable pulse shaping and focal profile smoothing for maximum precision. The laser is capable of a shot every 30 minutes. The interaction chamber contains multiple ports for simultaneous diagnostics, a sample holder that allows sequential exposure for 14 samples without breaking vacuum, the capability to vary the angle between the x-ray beam and laser beam by 135°, and the ability to translate to select one of two types of x-ray beams. X-ray data can be taken with a temporal resolution of ~90 psec. Highly reproducible, planar shocks can be propagated in samples to undertake precise and well-characterized experiments. In a series of ten shots, the absolute variation in the time the shock breaks out at the back of the sample is less than 500ps and the variation in peak particle velocity at the sample/window interface is 4.3%. Lastly, this paper describes the entire DCS Laser Shock Station, including sample fabrication and diagnostics, as well as representative experimental results from shock compressed tantalum to demonstrate the excellent quality of x-ray diffraction data in solid tantalum and to establish the stress for tantalum melting.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Glycoengineering bioconjugate vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics in E. coli

Abstract The first, general glycosylation pathway in bacteria, the N-linked glycosylation system of Campylobacter jejuni, was discovered two decades ago. Since then, many diverse prokaryotic glycosylation systems have been characterized, including O-linked glycosylation systems that have no homologous counterparts in eukaryotic organisms. Shortly after these discoveries, glycosylation pathways were recombinantly introduced into E. coli creating the field of bacterial glycoengineering. Bacterial glycoengineering is an emerging biotechnological tool that harnesses prokaryotic glycosylation systems for the generation of recombinantly glycosylated proteins using E. coli as a host. Over the last decade, as our understanding of prokaryotic glycosylation systems has advanced, so too has the glycoengineering toolbox. Currently, glycoengineering utilizes two broad approaches to recombinantly glycosylate proteins, both of which can generate N- or O-linkages: oligosaccharyltransferase (OTase)-dependent and OTase-independent. This review discusses the applications of these bacterial glycoengineering techniques as they relate to the development of glycoconjugate vaccines, therapeutic proteins, and diagnostics.

Harding, Christian M.↗

Real-Time Health Monitoring for Gas Turbine Components Using Online Learning and High-Dimensional Data

Capital-intensive turbomachinery, such as gas turbines and combined cycle plants, are constantly being monitored for performance anomalies, faults, and physical degradation. Although these power-generating assets are equipped with hundreds of sensors, existing monitoring tools can only handle moderate-sized data. As a result, only a handful of aggregate metrics are used to monitor machine health. At the same time, developing advanced tools suitable for large datasets have been restricted by the lack of appropriate data. The objective of this proposal was to demonstrate a Big Data analytics framework for fault detection and diagnosis in gas turbine applications. We develop a predictive analytics framework methodology guided by these experimental data, industrial data from our collaborators, and physics-based models with engineering domain knowledge. Our analytics framework consists of four key components (1) a data curation process that addresses data storage, data quality assessments, and integrity checks, (2) a feature engineering component that utilizes statistical methods and transformation algorithms guided by physics-based models to extract high-fidelity fault features that can be leveraged for fault detection and classifying fault severities, (3) a Machine Learning-based fault detection and diagnostics algorithms for detecting operational and hardware faults in the combustion and the turbines section. We utilize two industry-class gas turbine component test rigs to generate first of its kind data for critical gas turbine faults with varying severity levels. Advanced gas turbine test facilities will be interrogated using state-of-the-art instrumentation techniques to build fault signatures and data trends for key combustor and turbine faults. Data generated from a combustor test rig (Georgia Tech) and a turbine test rig (Penn State) during both normal operation and with seeded faults serve as the basis for the Big Data sets. The test conditions in the two test facilities include common, critical events that occur in the operation. Utilizing the combustor test rig, we examine two common combustor faults: lean blowout and centerbody degradation. For the turbine section we develop analytic models for monitoring cooling faults in the gas turbine

03 NATURAL GAS↗

Real-Time Health Monitoring for Gas Turbine Components Using Online Learning and High-Dimensional Data (Final Report)

Capital-intensive turbomachinery, such as gas turbines and combined cycle plants, are constantly being monitored for performance anomalies, faults, and physical degradation. Although these power-generating assets are equipped with hundreds of sensors, existing monitoring tools can only handle moderate-sized data. As a result, only a handful of aggregate metrics are used to monitor machine health. At the same time, developing advanced tools suitable for large datasets have been restricted by the lack of appropriate data. The objective of this proposal was to demonstrate a Big Data analytics framework for fault detection and diagnosis in gas turbine applications. We develop a predictive analytics framework methodology guided by these experimental data, industrial data from our collaborators, and physics-based models with engineering domain knowledge. Our analytics framework consists of four key components: (1) a data curation process that addresses data storage, data quality assessments, and integrity checks, (2) a feature engineering component that utilizes statistical methods and transformation algorithms guided by physics-based models to extract high-fidelity fault features that can be leveraged for fault detection and classifying fault severities, (3) a Machine Learning-based fault detection and diagnostics algorithms for detecting operational and hardware faults in the combustion and the turbines section. We utilize two industry-class gas turbine component test rigs to generate first of its kind data for critical gas turbine faults with varying severity levels. Advanced gas turbine test facilities will be interrogated using state-of-the-art instrumentation techniques to build fault signatures and data trends for key combustor and turbine faults. Data generated from a combustor test rig (Georgia Tech) and a turbine test rig (Penn State) during both normal operation and with seeded faults serve as the basis for the Big Data sets. The test conditions in the two test facilities include common, critical events that occur in the operation. Utilizing the combustor test rig, we examine two common combustor faults: lean blowout and centerbody degradation. For the turbine section we develop analytic models for monitoring cooling faults in the gas turbine.

20 FOSSIL-FUELED POWER PLANTS↗

Wavefront Preservation in Soft X-Ray Beamlines for the Advanced Light Source Upgrade

In the 4th generation of X-ray light sources, including Free-Electron Lasers (FEL) and Diffraction-Limited Storage Rings (DLSR), the emittance of the electron beam is small or negligible compared to the emittance of the photon beam produced by insertion devices, thus generating coherent beams of light. Over the next few years, several lightsource facilities will be built or upgraded to produce X-ray beams of unprecedented coherent flux. Delivering these exceptional beams to the sample chambers requires beamline optical systems that are designed to preserve the wavefront properties. Our goal in the Advanced Light Source upgrade project (ALS-U) is to create a new class of beamlines that reach diffraction-limited X-ray optical quality through tightly integrated, efficient optical systems, diagnostics, and adaptive mirrors, thus providing users with new scientific capabilities offered by coherent X-ray light interactions with matter. Herein we describe aspects of the beamlines’ design as they enter the project’s final design phase.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Quartz conditioning crystal for X-ray rocking curve topography

A large α-quartz crystal designed to condition the monochromatic beam at beamline 1-BM of the Advanced Photon Source is presented. The purpose of this crystal was to provide a precise match to the Bragg angle of quartz crystals that are commonly used to make analyzers for plasma diagnostics. In order to characterize these analyzers, area detectors need to be positioned at distances from the analyzer at upwards of 1000 mm. As a result of this precise matching, a Bragg-reflected beam from such an analyzer is precisely parallel to the beam incident on the conditioning crystal. This situation alleviates the need to adjust the position of the area detector as the distance between the analyzer and the area detector is varied. That is, there is no need to account for vertical displacement of the diffracted-beam image as a function of this distance. Additionally, verification that the analyzer is set to the correct Bragg reflection is obtained by scanning this distance, because only for a spurious reflection will there be a vertical displacement. This is a very useful check. To commission the conditioning crystal, diffraction from a high-quality flat quartz crystal was mapped using a CCD. Bragg diffraction from the 40$\bar{40}$ reflection at 8.5 keV was studied over an area of 23 × 31 mm. The theoretical Darwin width of the flat sample in this case was 4.7 µrad. An FWHM value near 6 µrad was measured over almost the entire mapped area. These data demonstrate that the resolution function for this four-crystal arrangement is ~4 µrad. Data are also presented for a 0.1 mm-thick α-quartz wafer pressed into a concave form, having a nominal radius of 500 mm and intended for use as an analyzer. Because analyzers are bent crystals, diffraction occurs in narrow bands. When a multiple exposure is made as a function of rocking angle a striped pattern is obtained, which is commonly referred to as a zebra-stripe pattern. A series of zebra stripes from the 30$\bar{33}$ Bragg reflection of the bent wafer over its 25 mm-diameter area were recorded on a CCD. The zebra-stripe pattern was analyzed to show a uniform bending to a radius of 497.0 ± 0.3 mm, in support of the nominal value. An r.m.s. slope error of 7 µrad was also obtained from this analysis.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Development and Validation of Physics-Based Sub-Models of High-Pressure Supercritical Fuel Injection at Diesel Conditions Insert

The project sought to develop and validate accurate, physics-based, numerical submodels and implement them in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software codes to enable accurate predictions of diesel sprays at pressures higher than the current systems. The combined experimental-computational effort has four main objectives: (1) acquire spatially and temporally resolved scalar measurements of fuel-oxidizer mixing in the near field of the fuel jet, (2) develop software modules to calculate thermo-physical properties of diesel surrogates and their mixtures with oxidizer of interest in real-gas operating regime, (3) integrate the real-fluid model into a commercial and an open-source CFD code to simulate fuel-air mixing in high-pressure diesel sprays, and (4) assess the robustness, accuracy, and uncertainty of the integrated CFD solvers in computing diesel sprays. Project accomplishments are consistent with the original goals of the project. Although we acquired spatially and temporally resolved scalar measurements, they were limited to refractive index difference and not to thermodynamic properties such as temperature and equivalence ratio. However, we successfully developed the theoretical background needed to acquire such measurements at diesel conditions and demonstrated the capability of the RSD for scalar measurements in a canonical turbulent jet flow replicating features of the diesel jet. Additional work will be needed to implement these procedures at high-pressure, high-temperature engine-like conditions of the CPFR. Mainly, we did not anticipate the need to find the liquid boundary and its statistical features or the state relationships between refractive index and thermodynamic properties, assuming the widely known Dale-Gladstone equation would suffice. Still, efforts devoted to these tasks were essential to fulfil the goals of the project and serves as the foundation on which many of the conclusions and key contributions of this project are based. Further assessment and application of the developed CFD codes is recommended to fully realize the benefits of this research.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

Development of the Astrobee F sounding rocket system.

The development of the Astrobee F sounding rocket vehicle through the first flight test at NASA-Wallops Station is described. Design and development of a 15 in. diameter, dual thrust, solid propellant motor demonstrating several new technology features provided the basis for the flight vehicle. The 'F' motor test program described demonstrated the following advanced propulsion technology: tandem dual grain configuration, low burning rate HTPB case-bonded propellant, and molded plastic nozzle. The resultant motor integrated into a flight vehicle was successfully flown with extensive diagnostic instrumentation.-

Jenkins, R. B.↗

Advanced Measurement Systems Available to PIWG Members

It was developed advanced measurement technologies to meet NASA goals: reduce design cycle time, reduce emission, reduce testing time, increase safety. The technology are saving money. This technology are available now for technology transfer: optical diagnostics, the film technology and MEMS devices.

Anderson, Robert↗

Concept for Inclusion of Analytical and Computational Capability in Optical Plume Anomaly Detection (OPAD) for Measurement of Neutron Flux

Researchers are working on many fronts to make possible high-speed, automated classification and quantification of constituent materials in numerous environments. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center has implemented a system for rocket engine flowfields/plumes. The Optical Plume Anomaly Detector (OPAD) system was designed to utilize emission and absorption spectroscopy for monitoring molecular and atomic particulates in gas plasma. An accompanying suite of tools and analytical package designed to utilize information collected by OPAD is known as the Engine Diagnostic Filtering System (EDiFiS). The current combination of these systems identifies atomic and molecular species and quantifies mass loss rates in H2/O2 rocket plumes. Capabilities for real-time processing are being advanced on several fronts, including an effort to hardware encode components of the EDiFiS for health monitoring and management. This paper addresses the OPAD with its tool suites, and discusses what is considered a natural progression: a concept for taking OPAD to the next logical level of high energy physics, incorporating fermion and boson particle analyses in measurement of neutron flux.

Patrick, Marshall Clint↗

First results from analysis of coordinated AVIRIS, TIMS, and ISM (French) data for the Ronda (Spain) and Beni Bousera (Morocco) peridotites

Ultramafic rocks are relatively rare at the Earth's surface but constitute the vast majority of the Earth by volume. Exposures of ultramafic bodies are therefore crucial for deducing many important processes that occur in the Earth's mantle. An important science question regarding the spatial distribution, abundance, and composition of mafic minerals in ultramafic bodies that can be examined with advanced sensor data is the melting process. When a lherzolite melts, clinopyroxene (cpx) melts first and therefore variations in the modal amount of cpx remaining in the mantle are a reflection of the amount of fractional melting that has occurred. Fe goes preferentially into the melt during melting but a 20 percent batch melting (i.e. closed system) acquires less Fe relative to 20 percent fractional melting (i.e. open system). Since the strength and wavelength of diagnostic absorptions is a strong function of Fe content, it is possible to make maps of the variation in Fe:Mg ratios which can be related to the general melting process. Accurate ground-truth information about local mineralogy provides internal calibration and consistency checks. Investigations using imaging spectrometer are very complementary to field studies because advanced sensor data can provide a synoptic view of modal mineralogy and chemical composition whereas field studies focus on detailed characterization of local areas. Two excellent exposures of ultramafic lithologies are being investigated with visible to mid-infrared imaging spectrometer data: the Ronda peridotite near Ronda, Spain and the Beni Bousera ophiolitic fragment in northern Morocco. Although separated by the Alboran Sea, these bodies are thought to be related and represent fertile sub-continental mantle. The Ronda peridotite is predominantly spinel lherzolite but grades into harzburgite and shows considerable variation in major and trace element compositions. Mafic layering and dykes (i.e. olivine gabbro) are also observed. This indicates some sections of the peridotite have experienced greater degrees of partial melting. The Beni Bousera peridotite also contains mafic layers and dykes and grades into harzburgite representing similar fundamental shifts in the bulk chemistry of this ultramafic body probably related to an episode of partial melting. The specific mode of emplacement of these bodies is controversial and important for understanding the tectonic evolution of this region. Our investigations are not necessarily designed to help resolve this controversy. Rather, these exposures provide excellent and unusual examples of fertile mantle which have undergone variable degrees of partial melting.

Mustard, J. F.↗